


my dearest love i'm not done yet

by theamazingpeterparker



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Torture, Demonic Possession, Exorcisms, F/F, Familiars, Fluff and Angst, Gender or Sex Swap, Girl Direction, Implied Niall Horan/Zayn Malik, Magic, Multi, Necromancy, OT5 Friendship, Self-Harm, Witchcraft, Witches, everythings a mess basically, yikes @ these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theamazingpeterparker/pseuds/theamazingpeterparker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I think it’s love,” Niall decides finally. Louis looks back at her, sprawled out in the tub in just her bra and jeans, hair a wreck, examining the dragon pipe carefully between her fingers.<br/>“What?"<br/>“The human soul,” Niall clarifies, eyes flicking up to Louis and she smiles gently. “I think it’s mostly made of love.”<br/></i>
</p><p>Witch girls AU where Harry is new, Niall is friends with a lot of crows, and Louis fucks around with a demon and gets them all in trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my dearest love i'm not done yet

**Author's Note:**

> ive made a HUGE MIStAKe  
> this was supposed to be my big bang. but. I've changed my mind. so here's this.  
> i have a few huge shoutouts to make here bc i was a pain in the ass with this fic  
> first is to [coffeeandniall's demon post](http://coffeeandniall.tumblr.com/post/125130799646) on tumblr because that's like. the main inspo for this fic.  
> second is to all the betas/cheerleaders who talked me through this, including but not limited to [annie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity), [kate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/), [sharon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justaboat/), [ lucy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully/), [clare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fervent/), and [rachel](https://jortsfan.tumblr.com/). i seriously owe y'all my LIFE, this was an entirely self-indulgent fic that spiraled out of my control but u guys STUCK WITH ME ANYWAY, seriously thank u so so much.
> 
> ALSO ! SCREAMS ! RACHEL DID AN AMAAAAAZING DRAWING OF MY WITCHES RIGHT [HERE !](http://jortsart.tumblr.com/post/132384418882/this-is-for-love-of-my-life-amy-vvitchseason)
> 
> title is from in the woods somewhere by hozier.  
> there are a few spells and things taken from harry potter and other magic-y sources, and any errors are my own.

+++  


_There is no better._  
_Only (for a short space)_  
_the night sky like_  
_a quarantine that sets you_  
_apart from your task._

_Only (softly, fiercely)_  
_the stars shining. Here,_  
_in the room, the bedroom._  
_Saying_ I was brave, I resisted,  
I set myself on fire.

_-louise glück, stars (the seven ages)_

 

+++

Harry shows up at a bad time.

A girl answers the door covered head to toe in dirt and mud, blades of grass caught in her short hair and she’s holding a bowl of lollipops, smiling until she sees Harry.

“Aren’t you a little old to be trick or treating?” she asks and Harry can see that her teeth, too, are slick with mud. Harry’s brain stumbles, not registering what she’s said at all until there’s someone shoving at the back of Harry’s legs and she turns to a gaggle of small children. They’re all dressed up, clowns and ghosts and a zombie, chiming “Trick or treat!” and the girl at the door smiles again, ushers Harry to the side so she can dump a few handfuls of candy into the kid’s bags.

“I’m not--I’m not trick or treating?” Harry says once the kids are retreating back down the porch and onto the street. It’s only just hit her that it’s Halloween. The girl at the door clears her throat, still hugging the bowl of candy to her hip and Harry frowns, looks up from her shoes and apologizes. She’s still...catching up with all of this. “Aren’t you guys a coven?”

The girl’s face hardens and she reaches out--Harry expects the candy bowl to drop but it hovers at her side when the girl grabs Harry’s collar and drags her into the entryway of the house, slamming the door behind her. The house inside is dark but warm, candles lighting the main hallway but through the hall Harry can see the entrance to a kitchen, the doorway framed with pumpkin string lights and cobwebs and the banister of the staircase is wrapped in green lights. It’s not exactly what Harry expected--looks more like a sorority house than a coven--but there’s still something about it. Something warm and magical and Harry feels safe as soon as the door closes behind her.

“Louis, where--” another girl rounds the corner into the hallway, holding a shovel with dirt up to her elbows. She frowns when she sees Harry. “Aren’t you too old for trick-or-treat?”

Harry stomps her foot, can’t help it, “I’m _not_ \--”

“Babe,” the girl in the hall laughs, leaning her forearms on the handle of her shovel, sounds sympathetic, “you don’t _actually_ have to dress up like a witch.”

Harry looks down at her outfit. It's not that she's been trying to dress like a witch but maybe her excitement has gotten the best of her, wanted to make a good impression and figured October would be the best time to do it. She's just wearing a black hat and black velvet dress, her favorite necklace with a sprig of wolfsbane in a tiny vial.

"Did you scare any kids on your way here?" Louis sneers.

Harry bristles, looks the tattered, dirty girl up and down. "No, but you might."

“How’d you find us?” Louis demands at the same time Harry asks, “is this a bad time?”

Louis looks across at the girl holding the shovel, who’s shaking her head, but Louis looks back at Harry and grins. “I _was_ about to be buried alive before we were interrupted.”

Harry raises her eyebrows and looks between the two girls, Louis still grinning and the girl with the shovel burying her head in her arms. “You serious?”

“How’d you find us?” Louis asks again.

Harry almost mentions her familiar, a fawn laying in the bushes outside but she decides against it, doesn’t want to sound too... crazy. “I don’t know. I just did.”

Louis narrows her eyes but the other girl seems to buy it. They exchange some silent look with each other and the girl holding the shovel finally whispers, “She knew we were a coven, Louis. No use trying to hide it now.”

“Fine,” Louis sniffs finally, flicking her hand so the bowl of candy floats back to the table by the door. She looks from Harry to the shovel. “Should we let her watch, Liam?" Louis suggests with a devilish grin, already heading into the kitchen where there’s an open door leading to the basement. Liam looks from Harry to Louis and shrugs, hoisting the shovel onto her shoulder. “It’s not going to work, so... sure,” she replies in an exhausted voice.

“It will!” Louis’s voice chimes stubbornly back from halfway down the dark staircase.

There’s candles throughout the basement as soon as they move down the stairs, illuminating rows and rows of bookshelves crammed with jars, books, boxes. Harry hurries to catch up with the other two girls, Louis rounding the corner of one bookshelf and the basement opens up to some kind of mad scientist’s laboratory, tables littered with candles and knives and more jars. There’s a monkey sitting on one of the tables who chirps when Louis appears and, in the center of the room, a human-sized hole in the ground.

“Back to it, Payno!” Louis demands, lowering herself gently into the hole and sitting with her back up against the wall of dark earth. Liam exchanges an eyeroll with Harry over her shoulder and plunges the shovel into the pile of dirt next to them, throws it down onto Louis’s ankles.

“She does this every year,” Liam sighs as Louis wriggles around, getting comfortable as the dirt starts to cover her legs.

“Look,” Louis shouts up at them and they both peer down over the edge to look at her. “If Halloween is the one night a year that the dead can walk the world of the living, then by all fucking means, I should be able to walk the world of the dead.” She spits dirt out of her mouth. “We just haven’t figured out the method of which I have to die.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Harry mumbles, not really the welcome she was expecting when she showed up here as Liam pushes the last of the dirt into the hole. Liam just pouts and shrugs, unconcerned. “We’ll find out in a few minutes.”

Harry stares anxiously down at the fresh dirt pile but she can feel Liam watching her. She finally clears her throat. “How much do you know about covens, Harry? Or us, specifically?”

Harry smiles sheepishly and shrugs. “I mean, Cat lead me here,” she explains, “and I’ve always loved this house, walked by it every day on my way to school--”

“Cat?” Liam asks gently, gets Harry back on track.

“Cat’s my familiar. He’s a fawn,” Harry explains, blushing, “I, uh. Left him in the bushes outside. I didn’t know if I could...bring him or not.” She eyes the monkey, sitting quietly on the worktable across the room with an arm in a jar of neon-bright worms. “I’m guessing--?”

Liam widens her eyes. “Oh, no, of course you can bring him in! That’s one of Louis’s familiars. Milton, this is Harry,” Liam tells the monkey. He looks Harry up and down and lets out a short chirp, then sets about gnawing on one of the worms. Liam lowers her voice and leans close, “He’s just as awful as Louis. Might take him a bit to warm up to you.”

“What’s he eating?” Harry can’t help but ask, hoping to get some kind of official glimpse into what witches’ pantries are like. Liam laughs. “Oh, those are just sour gummy worms. Half of the shit down here is just candy, I think.” She frowns. “She doesn’t label anything though, so take that with a grain of salt.”

There’s a muffled noise from the dirt and then the earth shifts. “Fuckin’ told her,” Liam shakes her head, _tsk_ ing as she digs the into the dirt. She continues digging until she meets Louis’s hands clawing their way up, and then abandons the shovel to pull the other witch to her feet.

Louis shakes herself like a wet dog and spits out a mouthful of mud. “ _Dammit_ ,” she groans, climbing out of the hole. “Thought I was close, too. Started to see a bright light, all that bullshit, but I think I was really just suffocating.”

“Shame,” Liam tells her but rolls her eyes at Harry over Louis’s shoulder. Louis doesn’t seem to notice, already rattling off methods of death for next year, “haven’t tried drowning yet, have we?” as the three of them climb the stairs. Harry must look slightly bewildered as they get back into the kitchen because Louis grins at her, wiggles her fingers playfully in Harry’s direction. “Welcome to the house, Harry,” she says, “and Happy Halloween!”

+++

Harry meets Niall at two o’clock in the morning. Liam helped Harry make up her room, complete with a small corner of blankets for Cat, who gets along with Liam’s mouse familiar, Gus, just fine. Liam and Louis did do their best to make her feel welcome, Liam leaving Harry with a hand-me-down beginner’s potions kit, and Louis dug up a box of old pots and soil when Harry expressed her interest in earth magic. But she can’t sleep, the house creaks and sighs all night and Harry can’t take it anymore, curiosity getting the best of her. If the house is allowed to be awake then so is Harry.

She’s standing alone in the middle of the kitchen, too scared to touch anything on the counter--the last cupboard she opened had a bat hanging inside that had hissed at her, and the first jar she opened screamed bloody murder at her. She just wants tea.

There’s a small shuffling noise that Harry flinches at, turns and lays eyes on a small, sandy cat slinking along the edge of the kitchen wall.

"Oh," Harry breathes, feels herself smiling as she crouches down, offering a hand out to the cat. "Hello. Can _you_ show me where the tea is?"

The cat squeaks and jumps onto the kitchen counter, strolls along and noses at an innocuous black box on the windowsill above the sink. Harry reaches for the lid.

"Don't touch that," a new voice says from the doorway and Harry stands up, turns to see a pretty blonde girl leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

"Is it not tea?" Harry asks, drawing her hand away from the box as the cat jumps down from the counter, twisting between the girls ankles until she picks it up.

"Oh, it's tea," she says, scooping up the cat, "but it's Louis's, and she's cursed the box to burn you if you take any."

Harry frowns at the cat in the girl’s arms. "You tricked me?"

The girl shrugs, unceremoniously dumps the cat onto the kitchen table before moving across the kitchen to open a pantry. "Apollo's a little bugger," she says, emerging from the pantry with a jar of teabags, "he's supposed to be _my_ familiar but it seems like Louis is trying to take him for herself. I'm Niall," she introduces herself with a smile, handing Harry the jar.

"Harry," she replies softly, watching as Niall opens the bat cupboard, strokes the hissing bat on the head, and reaching around the creature for a mug.

"Why are you creeping around at this hour, Harry?" Niall asks gently, leaning against the counter to watch as Harry looks around for a teapot, giving Niall a hopeless look. Niall watches her patiently and it dawns on Harry a bit late, like most things have recently, that she doesn’t need a teapot. She fills her mug with water and holds it in both hands, tight and close to her chest, stays silent for a few moments as she focuses on boiling the water. When the mug is steaming and she can finally steep her tea, Niall’s smiling brightly.

“Guess I’m not _totally_ useless, then,” Harry mumbles and Niall’s laugh sounds loud in the dark, quiet kitchen, but her voice is soft when she speaks, “Nah. It took Liam a month to stop mixing up her honey with her garlic-vinegar potion.”

Harry sits at the table with Apollo, who meows and butts his head against the back of Harry’s hand, purring his apology. Niall, meanwhile, sweeps around the kitchen, collecting a variety of jars and vials and setting them down on the table as she gathers them.

“Don’t even _think_ about it,” she says over her shoulder just as Apollo is reaching a paw out to nudge one of the jars to the edge of the table. Niall leaves the lights off and she’s completely silent, aside from the soft clinking of the glassware she picks up. It’s either the tea or the girl’s presence that puts Harry at ease for the first time since she got here, feels like she’s witnessing a proper ritual, a real witch. She’s not dressed in a pointed hat and curled boots, but Niall seems the most magical of them so far, her neck draped in a variety of crystal and stone necklaces, hands littered with silver and gold rings crowding against chipped lavender nail polish. She’s wearing a longline cardigan, the fabric swishing gently across the floor and one of her hands is covered in silver glitter. She’s the first witch Harry’s met that isn’t covered in dark, swirling tattoos but jewelry and shine, instead.

“What do you do?” Harry asks quietly but her voice still sounds loud and seems to startle Niall, she fumbles with a potted plant.

“Sorry?”

“Like,” Harry starts, regrets speaking up in the first place but her curiosity gets the best of her, “Louis is all, like, dark magic, isn’t she? What are you?”

“Ah,” Niall says with a nod, settling into the chair across the table with her variety of… _things_ , there’s tiny vials of what looks like glitter, a jar of water, containers of black and brown weeds and twigs. She leans back in her chair, running her glittery hands through her short, blonde hair, leaves a shiny streak across her forehead. Harry can’t stop staring but she doesn’t feel intimidated watching her like she did with Louis. Niall smiles warmly as Apollo climbs down from the table and into her lap. “Space magic,” she grins down at her rings, “little less predictable than potions or earth-magics, but that’s why I like it, I suppose.”

Harry finds herself smiling back at her and they sit in silence for a few moments before Niall’s laugh rings out gently, “You can ask anything you want. I know this is probably weird to get used to.”

Harry nods, smile fading as she turns her attention to the scattered vials and jars on the table between them. “What’s this?” she asks, poking a cautious fingernail against a small glass vial.

Niall reaches out and picks it up, offers it out to Harry. “This is from the last meteor shower,” she explains, pressing the small vial of bronze, glittering powder into Harry’s palm. “Stardust. Useful for all sorts of stuff, healing and helping psychic visions and calming you down. It’ll help you sleep, if you put in in your tea.” Harry looks up at Niall and her expression must be one of disbelief because Niall smiles wider, “it’s like that movie, _all you need’s some faith and trust and pixie dust._ Except, in this case…” she waves a have towards the vial.

Harry uncorks the vial, spills a little onto the table. It turns silver as soon as it’s out of the glass container and some of it floats, hovering a few centimeters above the table. ”How?” Harry asks.

Niall’s been watching Harry this whole time, smile never leaving her face but her grin twitches, now, like Harry’s just asked her a ridiculous question, “same way you collect water when it rains, isn’t it? Just leave some buckets out and let the sky do the rest.”

+++

”You have to sacrifice a dove, you know,” Louis says seriously the next morning around her mug, “If you want to stay with us, I mean. I have five left in the basement, if you just want to get it over with now.”

Harry looks desperately over Louis’s head at Liam, who’s shaking her head. “Just finding us means you can be in,” she says over Louis whining, “aw, Liam, don’t ruin it for me.”

Niall shuffles into the kitchen, scrubs her knuckles through Louis’s hair as she passes and Louis leans back into the touch. “Don’t harass her, Lou.” It’s a subtle exchange but Harry doesn’t miss it, and when she looks over at Liam with raised eyebrows Liam just lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

Niall passes by Harry next and rests a hand on her shoulder and it’s a gesture that feels just as intimate as Niall’s fingers in Louis’s hair had been and it clicks with Harry, then. The same way Liam had willingly put up with Louis’s buried alive antics, the pots and potion kit she already has set up in her new room, Niall helping Harry find the tea last night. Harry’s only been here one day but she lets herself consider love at first sight being real as Niall’s other familiar, a raven named Callisto, settles gently on Cat’s back, and Gus and Milton share a plate of granola with the fawn on the floor.

+++

Harry’s greeted with a loud hiss when she steps onto the last stair to the basement, almost loses her footing because she looks up to see a green tree python hanging from one of the rafters, fangs beared at her. Harry immediately drops into a crouch out of instinct, covering her face, “Holy shit--”

“Edith!” Louis’s voice barks from somewhere deep in the shadows and the snake draws back, eventually starts winding its way down the wooden column. Louis emerges moments later, holds out an arm so the python can curl around her wrist and Louis squints hard at Harry. “Did I invite you down here?”

Harry gapes at her--seems that that’s all she really can do around Louis--and then tries, “Liam--Liam said you had her box of nightshade.”

Louis opens her mouth to reply, but she’s interrupted by a loud _bang_ and the whole basement trembles. Louis mutters “shit,” and turns back to the dark hall from which she came and Harry follows tentatively.

“Don’t touch anything!” Louis shouts back to Harry as they round the corner to Louis’s workbench. Milton is sitting on the closest shelf, chattering and pointing to a cauldron that’s bubbling over with burning green goo.

“Yeah, I _see_ that, load of help you are,” Louis scolds the monkey and he just hisses back at her, goes back to nibbling at a strawberry as Louis lunges forward to secure the lid back on the cauldron.

“You ever try boiling dragon scales?” Louis asks with a grin, her hair falling out of it’s hold as she struggles to keep the lid on. Harry stares, shakes her head. “It’s kind of like putting metal in the microwave,” Louis decides once the cauldron finally settles down, “you’re not really _supposed_ to do it, but you can if you’re careful.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works--” Harry starts but Louis ignores her, throws a handful of blue powder into the cauldron and it immediately stops smoking. “Milton, go get Liam’s nightshade,” Louis tells the monkey, waving a hand as she peers down into the potion, but the monkey just stares at her, chews his strawberry even slower.

“Well _I_ can’t get it, I have to finish this, you useless creature,” Louis sighs after a few moments of silence from him. “Edith?” she looks hopefully down at the snake on her bicep but the python flicks her tongue and curls tighter around her arm. Louis throws a hopeless look towards Harry and sighs, “Well, you’ll just have to wait a bit. Feel free to look around. Don’t touch anything.”

Harry doesn’t want to wander far so she turns to examine the bookshelf behind her. “What are these?” Harry prods a finger at a jar full of long, semi-transparent crystals, some filled with what looks like smoke, others a syrup, some just clear.

“Demons,” Louis answers over her shoulder, “could pick one to possess you sometime, if you wanted. It’s a real kick, if you pick a good one.” She whistles low and there’s a flurry of feathers. A crow descends from... _somewhere_ above them in the dark, lands on Louis’s arm and she moves to hold it carefully in her hands.

“Possess?”

Louis rolls her eyes when she turns, still trying to keep the crow in her hands from pecking her, “Yeah. You ever see _The Exorcist_?” she pauses, frowns down at the bird, “actually, that’s a bad example.” She turns back to the table and there’s a squawk from the crow as she plucks out a feather and lets it go. The bird flies up onto one of the top of the bookshelves. “It’s kind of like being on autopilot. You can just let it take over for a little bit. Every time Zayn exorcised me, I came back feeling so refreshed--”

“Zayn?” Harry asks, stops watching Louis and turns to the bookshelf, trying to coax the crow down. She glances over when Louis doesn’t answer--the girl seems to have paused, frozen for a few seconds with a creased brow. Edith hisses at Harry.

“Just another witch we used to know,” she finally allows, carefully, and drops the feather into her cauldron. There’s a flare of purple flame that spikes up and Harry decides not to push it. The crow flutters down onto her outstretched forearm. “What’s with all the crows, anyway?” Harry edges, trying to switch subjects and Louis seems relieved.

“They’re mostly Niall’s--they hang out in the trees outside her room. Some of them like me, though,” she grins, “because I let them inside.” she turns back to her potion and sticks an earbud back in so Harry takes that as her cue to shut up, wanders along the shelves with the crow on her arm instead. The basement is quiet, aside from the staticky, muffled buzz of the Beastie Boys in Louis’s headphones and the occasional skitter of something from a distant, dark corner. Harry can feel eyes on her and it would be unsettling--these creatures and things that go bump in the night lurking in the basement, (“I don’t even know everything that’s down here, so just watch yourself,” Louis had warned her), but she doesn’t feel unnerved in the least. The eyes on her just feel curious, the darkness of the basement ebbing and tickling at her like it’s an animal sniffing her out for the first time, without any malicious intent. Between Louis’s presence and the crow that’s clucking and purring gently on Harry’s arm, she feels guarded, safe.

“Hey,” Louis calls as Harry’s examining a bloodied-jar labeled MAGGOTS ( _AOROI)_. Louis appears around the corner, holding a small black box that must be Liam’s nightshade. She hands it to Harry and hesitates. “Don’t tell Niall I mentioned the whole demon thing to you, okay? She doesn’t approve of it.” Louis looks the crow on Harry’s arm squarely in the eyes and says, “don’t _you_ tell her either, or I’ll pluck you like a chicken.”

The crow squawks and flaps its wings at her and Louis must take that as a good enough promise, because she waves a hand, fingertips slick with the purple potion she’s been brewing. “You can go. That’s all.”

+++

“What happened?” Niall asks with a sigh, Liam sulking by the sink and she shakes her head solemnly, holds up a finger to _wait_.

Niall quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t push it, figures it can’t be that tragic as she pours herself a bowl of cereal, says a quick “morning” to Harry as she comes into the room. She whisks past Niall without a word and Niall twists in her seat to follow her movement. Harry crosses the kitchen to tuck herself tightly into Liam’s side, hugs her around the waist and looks up at her, wide-eyed and…

“Liam, what did you _do_?” Niall’s laughing already, knows the answer and Liam worries at her lip, pats Harry on the head.

“Someone mixed up one of my love potions for cream in their coffee,” she says, widening her eyes and tilting her head towards Harry a bit. “A potion that wasn’t even right so it seems like it’s just a….clingy potion.”

“What shampoo do you use?” Harry asks conversationally, tangling her fingers in the end of Liam’s curls and raising a handful to her face. Liam gives Niall a hopeless look.

Harry is attached to Liam at the hip for three days because Liam can’t get the antidote right and Louis refuses to help her. She’s enjoying it too much, Liam’s slightly-cringey smile whenever Harry flounces into the room and lands herself at Liam’s side.

“Harry, babe,” Liam says gently to Harry, who’s sitting in Liam’s lap at the kitchen table, taking a bite of Liam’s apple.  “Do you remember that little talk we had about personal space?”

Harry just pouts but Louis howls with laughter, “Liam, you have to break up with her.”

“Can’t you just make me an antidote?” Liam whines. Harry’s got her fingers tangled in Liam’s hair again and she watches all of them curiously, lowering her chin to rest it on Liam’s shoulder. Louis is still laughing, shaking her head.

“When will you learn that you can’t manufacture love, babe?” she asks gently and Liam just grimaces.

“I guess I’ve learned that now.”

The only option is to let the potion wear off because Louis outright refuses to help Liam, it’s too amusing. Besides, it helps Harry get used to them--her affection shifts from Louis to the other two and by the third day she’s settled herself in everyone’s lap, followed everyone around like a puppy for a day. She swears after a week that the potion’s worn off but she’s just as clingy.

“Are you _sure_ you’re sober?” Louis asks one morning, grimacing when Harry rests a hand on her hip to reach around her for a plate in the cabinet. Harry hadn’t given it much thought, actually. She looks across the kitchen, where Gus is sleeping on Cat’s back. She shrugs. “I think I’m just a little in love with all of you, is all.”

Louis squints hard at her for a few moments, until Harry starts to blush. “Ew,” Louis finally replies.

+++

  
There’s a tattered cardboard box on the table when Harry comes down after Niall and Liam and Louis is peeling the foil off the top of a wine bottle. “You can set up, yeah?” Louis calls over her shoulder and Niall nods, moves for the table.

“Is that--?” Harry starts but she doesn’t have to finish, the _OUIJA_ logo is clear when Niall shimmies the lid off of the game. The board inside is just as worn as the box and covered in sharpie, _FUCK OFF_ underneath the _NO_ and a series of _? ! & :) :( _drawn into the borders. Niall brushes a nugget of weed off the planchette and places it and the board onto the floor between the four of them. Liam carries over an armful of candles and Louis with an armful of liquor.

The planchette slides lazily across the board and spells out _HELLO, LOUIS_. Louis smiles softly, raises the bottle of wine to her lips with one hand, the fingers of her other hand not leaving the planchette.

“Hello, ghostie. Who am I speaking to tonight?” she asks and the small triangle moves a little faster, now, _N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S_.

“Anything new happening, Nick?”

 _N-E-W-F-R-I-E-N-D_ and the plastic piece slides to the sharpied-in question mark at the edge of the board. Louis looks up at Harry and shrugs. “Yeah. But I mean what’s happening with _you_ , Nick.”

_D-Y-I-N-G-T-O-M-E-E-T-H-E-R !_

Louis groans, reaches for the wine again. “We have to drink every time they use a pun,” she tells Harry, nudging her a bottle of vodka.

“Anything we should know about, then, Nick? Anything Niall isn’t telling us?”

The planchette twitches and is still for a while, and then skids slowly across the board to the _Z_ , hesitates purposely there and then retreats back to the center of the board.

“Drink?” Harry asks, confused, but Louis’s face has settled into something sharp, the lines of her face harsh in the candlelight.

“What about her,” she asks the board flatly and the triangle twitches fast to _NO_ , and then _N-E-V-E-R-M-I-N-D_.

“Nick!” Louis barks and it’s so quiet, the planchette still for a long time and Louis closes her eyes, exhales. And then the planchette moves, _C-A-L-L-H-E-R_.

“No,” Louis snaps and the planchette rotates lazily over to _YES_ , but it feels like there’s not much heart in Nick’s argument. The conversation spirals after that, Nick cracking as many ghost-puns as they possibly can until Louis and the rest of them are too drunk to ask them coherent questions.

+++

  
Harry retreats to Liam’s study the next morning, searching for any kind of remedy for her killer hangover, and Liam gives her a sympathetic nod, invites her into her room.

Liam’s room is the most modern space in the house, an office-turned-study that she’s happy to share with Harry while she figures out where she fits in in the house. Harry lingers next to the cupboard next to the window while Liam gathers an armful of bottles and jars, setting them all in a specific order on her desk. Where Louis’s basement was an organized chaos, Liam’s study could almost pass as a real office, all of her containers color-coded and labelled specifically. The box of “EYE OF NEWT” closest to Harry is labeled “BEST BY APRIL 3067.”

Liam’s working on a healing potion but she abandons her bubbling cauldron to pass Harry a small glass of sweet pink liquid. She feels better almost immediately, her headache ebbing and she feels more awake, downs the whole glass in one go. Liam gives her a big, crinkly-eyed smile and goes back to her cauldron. It’s quiet, for a while, Harry ticking her thumbnail against the edge of the glass and she finally decides to go for it. The worst thing that’ll happen is Liam says no.

“Who was Zayn?" Harry asks, and if she didn't know any better she might have missed Liam's fingers sliding on the edge of her cauldron. Liam glances over at her, her expression withered and pleading, but Harry just presses harder, "Louis wouldn’t tell me.”

Liam doesn't look at Harry when she speaks. "She was the fourth one here before you," she starts carefully, pauses for a long moment to measure out a scoop of rosemary. "She was really close with Louis-- they were both into dark arts, blood magic and shit, you know? But she was good. Really good, and you know how Louis is. They were really competitive with each other." Liam pauses again, waiting for Gus to scamper up her sleeve and settle on her shoulder, tucked into the crook of Liam's neck as she turns back to her potion. "So, anyway, they were kind of." She bites her lip and frowns, waves a hand. "They were kind of together. But different than how Louis and Niall are.”

Harry looks away, down at a jar of dried scorpion tails. “They were always getting into messy shit down in the basement together, though, demons and blood magic and stuff. Zayn hurt Louis one day by accident but she decided that was enough, I guess.” Liam swallows thickly, holds a rose petal up to her face and inhales before dropping it into her cauldron and continuing. “She said it was for everyone’s good, safety, you know? But Louis took it real hard. She’s been gone almost a year and Louis still gets pissed if you bring her up. Hand me that knob of ginger?”

“Was that who Nick was talking about?” Harry puts together as she hands over the herb, “When they said ‘call Z’?”

Liam frowns and rubs her face. “Niall and I were trying to figure that out. I can’t imagine what Louis would need to call Zayn for?” she pauses. “Niall’s going to ask her crows.”

+++

Harry eventually begins to take over the kitchen as her own study, plants littering the windowsills and she reorganizes the pantry (much to Niall’s chagrin), freeing up an entire shelf for her growing collection of ingredients and herbs. She still hasn’t mastered the bat in the mug cupboard, though, who hisses and lashes out to bite her every time she opens it up. The other three, however, have no trouble dealing with him--it’s a simple hum or small pat on the head and the bat coos gently and moves aside so they can reach for a glass. “I don’t get it,” Harry finally sighs exasperatedly, sucking her bleeding thumb into her mouth after the bat had bitten her. Liam came into the kitchen moments later, opened the cupboard, stroked the bat’s stomach, and successfully pulled a mug from the cabinet.

“That’s Laser,” Liam explains over her shoulder but Harry’s not really listening, too busy watching the bat waddle upside down across the bar above the mug shelf, “it might take a while for him to get used to you.”

“Whose is he?” Harry demands, has finally begun to understand that every animal, from the crows outside to the cockroaches in the basement, are _someone’s_ familiar to some extent. She wants to know who’s bitter ass is responsible for this mean little bat. She’d put her money on Louis.

“He’s ours,” Liam replies a few beats later but her voice is firm and stiff, clearly unwilling to answer any more questions about it. “He’ll warm up to you. Just be nice.”

+++

"Aw, not in here, Lou," Niall complains gently but it's too late, the sink is already glowing with tiny water nymphs and Louis looks up sheepishly from where she's sitting on the edge of the bathtub, packing her small glass dragon pipe.

"Liam's going to be so pissed," Niall points out but moves across the bathroom to sit next to Louis on the tub.

"I have to let them soak," Louis says with a shrug, "needed the steam from the bathroom to get them to glow. I’ll share half the light I get with Liam, promise. Here.”

She offers Niall her pipe and Niall hums as she takes a hit, exhaling it away from Louis. “Is this what you do all day when we’re not home? Sit in the bathroom and smoke?”

Louis just shrugs and crawls into the tub, letting herself slip down on the porcelain until the back of her neck is resting against the lip of the bathtub. “Been working on what the human soul consists of.”

Niall chuckles under her breath, sinking into the tub herself, opposite of Louis. She passes the pipe back over. “Oh, yeah? How’s that coming along?”

Louis snaps her fingers irritably, a small flame flickering on and off on her fingertips as she heats the pipe. “Fucking hard as hell, because my Halloween attempts haven’t been working. It’s too fucking hard to figure out.”

“I never really understood it myself,” Niall exhales through the smoke, eyes drooping a bit.

“It’s simple, innit,” Louis babbles, “Matter can’t be created or destroyed, right, what makes the human soul any different? Where does it _go_ when we die?”

Niall hums _guess so_ and drapes her legs across Louis's lap, gesturing for her to hand over the pipe. Apollo and Milton are collapsed over each other napping in the corner under the sink and Niall can feel herself drifting but something about Louis's excitement is keeping her awake.

"So you argue that souls are a tangible thing?" Niall asks, ignited a flame on her fingertip to hold under the glass pipe. “You think they could go to our familiars?”

Louis watches her for a long moment, licks her lips. "Maybe. So what, our familiars are past witches?”

Niall can’t take this conversation seriously but Louis’s face is so earnest, so curious. She gets like this when they’re alone and high, Niall knows that she could talk for hours about necromancy and dark magic, but Niall has a hard time following her, sometimes.

Niall shifts forward, eyes half-hooded and she leans her elbows on her knees, waits patiently for Louis to finish speaking but doesn’t take her eyes off of the girl’s mouth the whole time. “I need to figure out what happens when we die. Because if there’s no heaven or hell--no place for our souls to _go--”_

"Do you remember," Niall interrupts softly, smells like stardust and smoke as she leans close, “When you and Zayn locked Liam in here and told her you had conjured Bloody Mary in the mirror?”

Louis blinks at being cut off but she follows the change of subject easily, tilting her head back to laugh. “We really had, though. She was fuckin’ boring as hell. I don’t blame her, she’s probably summoned every night around the world by dumb-ass human kids--maybe that’s something to look into. How souls get trapped into objects?”

Niall hums but she’s not paying attention. Her lips are dry when she leans forward to kiss Louis and Louis smiles against her mouth, murmurs _finally_ before her tongue traces along Niall’s bottom lip. Niall shifts to straddle Louis as best she can in the narrow bathtub, cupping Louis’s face as she kisses her. Louis rucks Niall’s shirt up over her hips and torso, discarding the shirt onto the tile floor and pressing her palms flat against Niall’s stomach. She’s flushed and hot, always is when she’s high like this. It’s been too long since they’ve last done this and there’s nothing Louis loves more than just kissing Niall, lazy and slow, all the time in the world. She’s lost track of how long they’ve been kissing but a small splash pulls them away from it, Louis glancing up over to the sink while Niall sucks a lovebite onto Louis’s neck. “Shit,” she mumbles, maneuvers Niall carefully off of her so she can sit up, step out of the tub. The water nymphs have sweat out enough glow to fill the water and leave a ring around the sink. Niall watches her collect the small creatures back to their tank and flood a handful of small jars with the glowing yellow liquid, lights the pipe for one last hit. “I think it’s love,” Niall decides finally. Louis looks back at her, sprawled out in the tub in just her bra and jeans, hair a wreck, examining the dragon pipe carefully between her fingers.

“What?”

“The human soul,” Niall clarifies, eyes flicking up to Louis and she smiles gently. “I think it’s mostly made of love.”

+++  
“Trust me,” Louis pleads, “you’ll love it. It’ll be fun.”

Harry glances over at Niall, who’s staring hard at Louis but she must decide that whatever it is should be fine. “What _is_ it, though,”Harry tries to ask again and Louis just waves a dismissive hand. Niall throws her head back and laughs.

“Louis, I’ll do whatever this shit is, but at least make Harry feel better about it.”

“Fine,” Louis pouts, looking down at her pitcher of purple potion. “It lets you see things from someone else’s perspective.”

“So like, mindreading?” Harry asks with a furrowed brow and Louis’s mouth twitches and she edges the shot glass closer to Harry.

“Yeah, something like that.”

 Niall picks up her glass and Harry reluctantly picks up her own. “This feels like some kind of hazing,” Harry mutters and Niall laughs before she tips her head back, downing the purple potion in one go. Harry follows suit obediently, expecting to splutter on the potion but it’s sweet and smooth. Louis smiles tightly at the two of them as they place their shot glasses back down on the table and produces a bottle of cherry vodka out of nowhere, immediately refills their glasses along with her own and Liam’s. “Do you cheers before vodka shots?” Louis wonders out-loud to Liam, doesn’t wait for an answer. “Cheers to…” she grins, “new experiences.”

+++

Harry wakes up in Niall’s room. She panics, for a second, because Niall’s not even in bed and Harry has no recollection of coming in here, stares at the ceiling littered with stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars. It’s kind of hard to panic in Niall’s room, anyway, Harry decides after a few minutes, her bed is warm and soft and deep blue and the sun is barely up yet, drenching the room with a soft purple haze. Cancer and Leo hang over Harry's head, Niall’s ceiling charmed to move in time with the sky outside and she lets her eyes adjust to the fading constellations for a few minutes. Harry just lays and listens as the sun starts brightening up the room, the quiet ticking of Niall’s astronomical clock on the desk across the room, small clicks and chirps from the crows outside and the various scales and jars throughout Niall’s room. There’s a soft chirp, and the end of the mattress shifts. Harry sits up to see Apollo crawling towards her, settles firmly into Harry’s side. The cat has never willingly gotten this close to Harry before, and she reaches a hand above the covers to touch his head. She blinks.

Her tattoos are gone. The anchor on her wrist isn’t there, her whole forearm is smooth and blank and her fingernails are pale blue, the same as Niall’s usually are. She flips the blankets back--Apollo hissing and jumping free from the fabric--and looks down at a body that isn’t hers. She lifts up her (not her) shirt and her stomach is bare, almost moves to take her shirt off completely and then hesitates, _if this isn’t my body whose is it_ \-- “Niall?” Harry calls out and it’s not her voice, either, moves out of bed and looks across the room to the mirror above the dresser. Niall’s looking back.

+++  
Niall wakes up naked. Her hands slides against her bare stomach and she frowns as she turns over, the realization rather obvious now and she reaches over to the space in bed next to her, maybe Louis is here. It’s not until she finally rubs and opens her eyes when she realizes she’s not in her own room but Harry’s, Cat watching her from where he’s curled up in the corner by the window. “What the fuck,” Niall deadpans loudly into the dark room. She raises her hands and sighs, Harry’s tattoos confirming what she’s already suspected. “Goddamn Louis goddamn Tomlinson,” she mutters, rubbing her face and Cat raises his head when there’s a distant _Niall?_ from down the hall.

Niall stands up and she’s...taller, takes her a few long seconds to readjust to this new body, Harry’s long hair knotted and tangled down her back and she trips over her feet on her way to the door. “Louis!” Niall yells and there’s a long, stretched out silence and then Liam’s voice from downstairs in the kitchen, “ _Louis_ , you didn’t,” and then Louis’s laughter rings out clear and sharp throughout the whole house.

+++

Harry stares hard across the table at Niall and Niall just grins. So _that_ ’s what Harry’s dimples look like. “This is so fucking weird,” Niall mumbles but the curse words sound odd coming from Harry’s mouth, Niall’s accent just barely there under Harry’s usual drawl.

“You’re really hot, Niall,” Harry observes, and then pouts, “I don’t suppose you’ll let me look at you naked.”

Liam splutters on her tea but Niall just pouts and shrugs. “I mean….wait. Harry, _why do you sleep naked.”_

Harry just grins back, reaches a hand up to grope Niall’s breast through her shirt. “Why _don’t_ you sleep naked?” she asks back.

Liam and Louis exchange a look, Liam grimacing and Louis grinning wide and Harry catches it. “What?”

Louis starts to shake her head but Niall reaches over, covers Louis’s mouth with a tattooed hand. Harry squints. She really needs to get her anchor touched up. “This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Niall explains. “Zayn and Liam switched bodies a couple years ago and the only way to fix it is. Well, sex.”

Louis barks a laugh when Niall takes her hand away with an eyeroll. Liam looks exhaustively over at the giggling witch. “Louis likes to play matchmaker.”

“Oh, please,” Louis snorts, “like you hadn’t been fantasizing about getting with Zayn for four years.” She looks over at Niall and Harry and smiles sweetly. “You’ll thank me later.”

  
Niall snorts and Louis kisses her on the cheek on her way out of the room, winking obnoxiously from the doorway before she heads upstairs. Liam frowns after Louis and stands up, too, pats Harry on the head. “I’ll dig up some old potion books,” she tells the two of them, looking sympathetic, “I’m sure we can fix it.”

Harry waits until Liam has disappeared to look over at Niall with raised brows. “Well,” she says slowly, “we _know_ how to fix it.”

Niall’s mouth twitches, like she doesn’t want to give Harry the satisfaction of smiling but she ends up grinning anyway, hiding it behind her hand. “We do.”

There’s a long pause that would be awkward if it wasn’t for Niall giggling and Harry waggling her eyebrows.

Neither of them speaks until Harry says, “well, if you’d _really_ rather trust Liam’s potions--”

“Fair point,” Niall replies immediately, standing up from the table and grabbing Harry by the wrist, “let’s go.”

  
“Wait, wait,” Niall giggles as soon as they’re back in Niall’s room, Harry pressing her up against the door kissing her shoulder but she pauses, moves back to look at Niall. Niall grins devilishly and it looks kind of out of place on Harry’s own face. “We could fuck with Louis first?”

Harry steps back immediately, nodding, “yes. Yes.”

+++

Louis laughs when Harry comes down the stairs. “You’re welcome,” she chirps, turning back to her bookshelf and Harry walks over, still in Niall’s body, and hugs Louis around the waist. She rests her chin on Louis’s shoulder and Louis leans back into it. “Harry just needed a good lay,” Louis says quieter, now, turning her head to say it against Harry’s cheek. “And I know _you’ve_ been crushing on her since she got here.”

Harry feels herself blush but she tries to play it cool, humming, “Was it really that obvious?”

Louis chuckles, the laughter vibrating through her back into Harry’s chest. “Can’t blame you though, can you? She _is_ hot.”

It’s such a shock that Harry breaks character, snorts a laugh so hard it hurts and Louis twists away from her. “You _fucking_ trick,” Louis shrieks but she does start laughing, reaches out to flick Harry on the ear. “I should have known.”

Harry sticks her tongue out, “You could join us, if you’d like,” she suggests, raising her eyebrows, and Louis’s expression flattens out to something serious. Harry frowns. “Threesome,” she clarifies.

“Oh, my god,” Louis finally says, rubbing her eyes, “I never thought I’d hear the suggestion of a threesome come out of Niall’s mouth.” She considers it and then steps forward, kissing Harry on the mouth. “No thanks, babe,” she replies as she pulls away, patting Harry on the cheek. “Now _please_ go take care of this with Niall. You really do need to get laid.”

+++

 Louis doesn't see either of them for a few hours and she resorts to tormenting Liam and Gus, tickling the sleeping mouse with a cotton swab and saying random numbers as Liam attempts out count out how many vampire fangs she has left.

“Fuck’s sake, Tommo, I know you're jealous but you _were_ the one who gave them both the potion,” Liam finally snaps, and Gus bites Louis's thumb.

Louis is about to argue and then the hall creaks and a bedroom door closes. Louis grins and Liam rolls her eyes just as Louis flails off the bed, runs across the hall to Niall’s room.

“Hey,” Louis says gently as she opens Niall’s cracked bedroom door a bit more and Niall grins up at her. It's her, now, Louis is sure of it--Harry-Niall in the basement had been too exaggerated, too soft and loose.

“I made Harry come three times and then she passed out on me,” Niall says nonchalantly, kicks the covers back and pats her bed for Louis to come over.

“Three?” Louis asks, surprised, and Niall winks. “We had to make sure we were really back in ourselves, didn't we?”

Louis grumbles as she crawls up Niall's mattress and Niall just laughs. She throws her arms around Louis's torso in a bear hug, kisses her cheek. “You're still my favorite.”

Louis hums, tries not to seem too jealous but she's never had a good poker face and Niall hums back, scoots around so she's facing Louis. “You could have joined us, if you wanted,” Niall murmurs, tipping her forehead down against Louis’s and Louis snorts. “Yeah, right. I’d probably end up with your laugh and Harry's inability to speak at a consistent speed.”

“Well,” Niall continues to whisper, her mouth edging closer to Louis’s, “maybe next time, _don't give us mysterious potions_.”

“Are you mad at me?” Louis quips gently, mouth quirking up into a grin and Niall scoffs.

“Hardly. Just maybe...stop hazing Harry.” Niall pauses. “she really did need to get laid, though. Between this and Liam’s accidental love potion, I think she feels a lot better around us. Like she’s fitting in.”

Louis hums and Niall tucks herself into Louis’s side, kisses her on the neck. “It’s kind of nice having four again, you know?” she asks carefully. Louis tries to not tense up but she pauses where she’s running her fingers through Niall’s hair.

“I guess it is,” she finally allows, resting her chin on the top of Niall’s head.

“Do you miss her?” Niall breathes even quieter a few minutes later, her fingers careful on the edge of Louis’s hipbone. Louis nods against Niall’s head.

“Yeah. Every day.”

“Me, too.”

+++

“Fuck you!”

Louis rounds the corner to see Harry shouting at a bundle of bananas.

"Harry, it is _8:30_ in the _goddamn morning--"_ Louis starts to threaten and then there's a tiny squeak: "fuckyou!"

"These bananas are going bad," Harry pouts, glaring down at the slightly-browned, spotted fruit. "No, fuck _you."_

 _"fuckyou!"_ the bananas cry back.

 _"_ NO! FUCK--"

"Jesus," Louis heaves, picking up the bananas and chucking them in the garbage can, their wailing muffled by the lid closing. “I get that you’re an Earth witch and all,” Louis sighs, rubbing her face but there’s a small smile tugging at the edges of her mouth as the tinny chorus of _fuckyou!_ ’s continues from the trashcan, “and we don’t have a lot of rules in this house, but _please_ don’t allow the food to be sentient. Niall enjoys her chicken nuggets far too much.”

+++

There’s a commotion upstairs, three sets of feet clammering around the kitchen and Louis almost yells up for them to shut up. She’s halfway up the stairs to tell them to be quiet when Liam speaks, “She’s still broken up about it.”

Louis pauses on her stair, freezes like she’s been caught redhanded. And then, Niall, “she hasn’t really let herself get close to anyone since. It’s not your fault.”

“I just feel like she doesn’t like me,” Harry says. Louis’s heart pounds in her ears so loud she’s scared that the others will hear it. There’s a pause between the three of them on the floor above Louis and then Liam speaks up, hesitantly. “Zayn was really the only one who understood her magic on a physical level.” There’s a heavy silence.

“I’ve been trying,” Niall adds hesitantly, voice careful the way it is whenever she’s trying to quell the tension. “She’s a lot better than she was, when Zayn first left. She came to me, I guess. I fucking love her, you know? But...yeah. Zayn was the only one who understood her magic. I appreciate it. I respect it. But I don’t understand it.”

They seem to be finish talking and because Louis is an asshole she comes upstairs, now, opens the basement door to see the three of them frozen like deer in headlights.

“Lou,” Niall recuperates first, smiles too brightly, “we’re going to the market. You want to come?”

Louis sets her mouth in a straight line, feels like a caged animal standing in the doorway to the basement, still in her pajamas, disheveled, and the other three dressed in their coats and boots, ready to go out. It feels like she’s proving everything they’ve just said about her, like she’s their lonely, recluse friend who lives in the basement.

“Can you pick me up a new jar of squid ink?” Louis requests and the three of them seem to let out a collective sigh of relief, Liam nodding happily as she shrugs on her jacket. “Squid ink. Got it. We’ll be home in a bit.”

+++

Louis sits on her table for a long time, Edith sleeping in her lap and Milton upstairs, probably tormenting Laser. She’s fucking bored and she’s fucking _miserable_ , can’t stand sitting still any longer. She tries to do inventory, because that always seems to be what Liam does to kill time. Louis makes it through two jars of rat tails and bone powder before she makes it to her jar of demon crystals. She dips her hand curiously into the jar, pulls out a handful of the long, narrow crystals. Some of them are labelled--a feeble attempt by Liam a few years ago to categorize them all--and some are clouded, old and unmarked. Louis plucks one of them from the handful.

“Hello," Louis begins softly and the matter in the crystal twitches. "you want to come out and play?"

The black cloud writhes impatiently and Louis exhales hard, places the crystal in her open Ouija board box on the table. "Been a while since I last did this, give me a second." She leaves the trembling crystal on top of the ouija board in the box, has to climb onto the bottom two shelves to reach the box on the top shelf, hasn’t been touched in months. She takes a hit off her joint and pulls out her wand.

Louis pauses, for a second, something buzzing at the back of her brain that she should probably double check her journal to make sure this is the right demon and not some satanic one. But her journal is all the way across the basement on another shelf and she's certain this is just a trickster one, has the same consistency and color as the demons she and Zayn used to fuck around with. Besides, there’s a sticker at the bottom of the crystal with “ _OR”_...some other smudged letters and Louis is certain that it’s the pesky demon from the Old Testament. Ornias. She’s certain.

She smashes the crystal with the base of her wand and there's a sound like a gasp, the black matter melting and spreading on the table surface like dry ice. "Come on, then," Louis murmurs, exhales a haze of smoke so it mingles with the black cloud and then leans down, inhales the smoke and blackness all at once.

She tries not to choke on it, the acidic tang at the back of her throat lingering a second too long before it melts down into her chest and settles there. She's still for a while, can still feel it writhing around, trying to get comfortable. The weight eventually tightens right in the center of her ribs and she shivers, takes another hit from her joint.

+++

Niall’s crystal ball is black when she walks in and Callisto is perched on the back of her chair, feathers ruffled up. “What’s wrong?” Niall asks and there’s a series of chimes throughout the room, prompting her towards the raven. Callisto pecks gently at the crystal ball and Niall reaches out, lays a fingertip on it. She gets a series of flickers in response, _comeoutandplay/louisrollingajoint/colddarkrottenold/crack_ and then resurfaces like she’d just been dunked in a tank of ice water. She draws her hand back and gasps, blinking hard until her vision comes back properly to see fifteen or twenty crows in the branches outside her window. “Is it someone here?” she asks through the open window and there’s a ruffling of feathers, a universal _yes_. “Is it Harry?” Silence, a _no_.

Niall chews her lip, looks back at her black crystal. “Are we in trouble?”

Callisto coos softly, sadly, as the crows ruffle their feathers again.

+++

“Louis was in my doorway last night,” Liam mumbles around her toast and Niall shoots up, dark circles under her eyes but immediately attentive, “What?”

“I think she was sleepwalking,” Liam says quietly, glances nervously towards the basement door that’s cracked open. “But something felt really off about her. I just pretended to be asleep.”

“Liam,” Niall starts shrilly, has to take a moment to swallow the piece of her bagel, compose herself, “Did she talk to you? Was she talking?”

Liam shakes her head slowly, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “Why? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing,” Niall replies quickly, already getting up and pushing away from the table, grabbing the saltshaker from the table. She’s just turning to leave when she catches Harry’s expression, creased and looking down guiltily at her hands. Niall pauses. “Harry.”

The girl looks up like she’s been caught red-handed, blushing furiously. Niall squints at her. “What, H? Cat got your tongue?”

Harry shakes her head but lets out a shocked yelp when Apollo jumps onto the table in front of her and hisses. “Nothing,” she blurts, “Just. She seemed upset yesterday? When she walked in on us.”

Liam’s had a ring of salt around her room since the first time Louis forgot to end a seance properly and Liam had a demon under her bed for a month. Niall herds the three of them upstairs and they squish together on the bed.

“Louis!” Niall yells loud enough that it’ll carry all the way into the basement. The three of them wait, Niall standing in the middle of Liam’s bedroom and Harry and Liam are tucked together back on the bed, trying to not look fucking petrified. There’s a long stretch of silence before the third stair creaks and Louis finally makes it upstairs, lingers in the hall and peeks around into Liam’s  room. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Can you come in here, please?” Niall asks gently but something passes over Louis’s face and she steps fully into the doorway, feet toeing the carpet edge into the room. “Why?”

“Harry has to show you something.”

Louis squints, doesn’t move. Niall looks at her feet, a few inches away from the white line of salt in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Louis snaps, stiff and hollow in the hall. She looks between the three of them again, apparently decides it’s not worth it, and disappears back down the hall. Niall doesn’t speak again until they hear the third stair creak again, and then the basement door shut.

“What the hell was that,” Harry deadpans, still staring at the spot Louis had just been standing.

“What is this, Niall,” Liam asks slowly and Niall bites her tongue. She doesn’t want them to panic, especially if it’s not what she thinks it is. “I don’t know yet,” she says slowly, “but it’s probably why Nick wanted us to call Zayn.”

+++

“Lou?”

The girl is standing in the entryway of the house, blood up to her elbows and her back to Niall, doesn’t move at all after her name is called. Niall’s seen Louis doing some weird shit but this is the first time she’s felt genuinely unnerved, hairs on the back of her neck standing up. The house has never been this quiet.

“Louis,” Niall tries again as she moves around to the front of the girl. Louis is staring out the window of the door, blood on her chin, clearly not herself.

“You’re into some shit, aren’t you,” Niall murmurs, reaches out to gently touch Louis on the cheek with her fingertips. Louis doesn’t jolt or bite her or scream--she just closes her eyes and exhales softly, leaning into the touch, and when she opens her eyes again, she seems like herself again.

“Hey, babe,” she murmurs, starts to smile and then must taste the blood in her mouth, sets her lips into a hard line instead. “You’re the only one awake?”

Niall nods slowly, draws her hand away. “Where were you? Are you alright?”

Louis drags a finger through the blood on her cheek, sucks it off her thumb. Niall tries not to make a face. She’s still trying to decide whether or not this is really Louis. It’s too dark to tell. “Peachy,” Louis replies with a tight smile and she pats Niall on the cheek and she moves around her towards the kitchen. Niall feels heavy with the slick weight of Louis’s bloody handprint on her face now.

+++

"Louis," Niall breathes against her neck and Louis feels a tremor drip down her spine, shivers along with it, "Lou. I know what you did. I have to tell the others."

"And what is it that I've done, Niall?" Louis starts softly but there's a hard bite on _Niall_ , a voice that isn't completely her own and she tries to swallow it back, keep it tight in her chest but it's already halfway up her throat when Niall says, without missing a beat, "you fucked around with a demon, didn't you? You're possessed?"

Louis just hums low, digs her nails into niall's shoulder to steady herself but Niall doesn't even flinch. "They have to know, Lou. This one’s been here a while, hasn't it?"

"I've got it though," Louis protests, looks Niall sharply in the eye. "I'm _me,_ okay? don't you trust me?" and that's Ornias speaking, took over Louis's throat and mouth before she could stop it.

Niall frowns, states hard back at Louis until Louis has to look away. "I'm going to tell them. Just in case."

+++

Louis wakes up feeling. Lighter. Her stomach flutters at the sudden loss of Ornias, some kind of heavy mass in the middle of her torso that had clung to her for days, but now it's not there and she can't help but panic because where the fuck could it have gone.

"Did you fucking exorcise me in my sleep or something?" she hisses to Niall at breakfast, tries to cover up her panic about a demon loose in the house with annoyance at the younger witch.

Niall picks her head up from the table, rubs her face hard. "I slept like a fucking corpse last night, so no," she grumbles around her mug. "Callisto woke me up by pecking at my shoulder until I bled."

She shrugs her shirt off her shoulder to show a cluster of angry red welts, and Louis whistles low and looks over at the raven on the windowsill. Callisto just clicks her beak indignantly. Something new settles in her gut, a deep concern as she looks back at the wound on Niall’s shoulder, edges a cigarette out of her holder and lights it just to stop herself from staring at Niall. She almost wants to tell her that Ornias is gone but she can’t because she doesn’t know where it _is_ and that would just cause more panic. Niall only frowns at Louis for another few moments before burying her head back in her arms. She falls asleep at the table before her tea even gets cold.

+++

“Jesus,” Harry breathes softly when she sees Niall’s arm and Niall doesn’t hear her, at first, still fucking with the focus on her telescope but she hums, “What’d you say?” while her eye is still pressed against the scope. Harry waits until Niall looks up expectantly at her and Harry just points to Niall’s wrist. The skin is bruised dark, black and blue like someone grabbed her hard and Niall frowns down at it. “Huh.”

Harry reaches out a tentative finger to poke at the injury, presses her thumb lightly against the bruise, expecting Niall to react to the pain. But her reaction never comes, she just watches Harry press harder against her wrist. “How’d you get that?” Harry asks.

Niall pulls her arm away from Harry and rubs at the wound, looking over towards her windows curiously. “I have no idea,” she laughs, shrugging her sweater sleeves down over her hands. “I’ll have Liam look at it, I’m sure she’ll have something to fix it.”

Harry smiles tentatively back at her and Niall just shrugs again, turns back to her telescope and star chart. Harry doesn’t miss the way Niall absently rubs at her wrist for the rest of the afternoon but doesn’t push the matter any further. Figures that if it’s something serious, Niall will tell them.

+++

"Niall--Niall, _watch it,"_ Liam barks, voice going shrill with panic when Niall drops the knife and it grazes her bare ankle on the way down. "Are you alright?"

Niall frowns down at the knife and her bleeding ankle, takes a full five seconds to respond, like her brain hasn't caught up with the injury yet. "ow?" she asks with a quirked smile and shrugs, so Liam figures it can't be that bad.

"I'll get you a salve," Liam tells her, picking up the knife and Niall hops up to sit on the counter, draws her leg up into her lap. By the time Liam comes back she's bleeding freely, Niall’s palm slick with blood where she's got a hand clasped over the cut.

"Jesus, are you sure you're okay?"

Niall shrugs, moves her hands away so Liam can apply her healing paste to the cut and bandage it. "It really didn't hurt," she assures Liam, and jumps down from the counter like it never happened.

+++

"Apollo scratched me," she mutters, kicks her legs deeper under the blanket so Harry has no choice but to drop the issue, but it really didn't look like a cat scratch--a long, deep gash down the side of Niall’s calf.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself while she was shaving, the steam and warmth of the bathroom made her skin so hot, her veins so close. Felt like something was vibrating just under her skin and she had to let it out, ran her razor hard enough along her leg that the skin opened up. It was only when she saw the blood that she snapped out of it, _what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck_ as she pressed a washcloth to the injury, managed a healing charm that's enough to stop the bleeding. She tries to make it to her bedroom at the end of the hall without being seen but Louis is at the top of the stairs when Niall comes out of the bathroom. She's wrapped in a towel, hair still damp and Louis looks like she's about to crack a joke when her eyes find Niall’s bleeding leg, dripping onto the carpet.

“Niall, shit, are you okay?” Louis asks, rushed forward but Niall shies away, shrinks back up against the wall. Louis pauses, words heavily in her mouth when she asks, “What the fuck happened?”

“I--” Niall stutters, looking down at her leg still in shock. She's not entirely sure she was the one who actually did this, felt too much like the nights she's been waking up in the basement or on the kitchen floor, whole moments of her memory scribbled out, “It wasn't me. I was shaving and then-”

“Niall,” Louis tries gently but she can't quite mask the urgency in her voice, “have you been feeling okay? Because Ornias--the demon I had--it left and I never found it.”

It feels like a confession, her words hanging coldly over both of their heads and Niall shakes her head. She looks terrified.

“Look, let me see if I can help you, okay? Get dressed and come downstairs--”

“I don't need help!” Niall barks, looking down and away from Louis and her whole body looks so tense that it could snap. Louis shuts her mouth in shock, the last time she heard Niall yell like this was when Zayn left--

“You had to go fuck around with demons and now look what you've done, Louis,” Niall continues, voice low and dangerous and it doesn't sound like her. It's not her.

“Ornias?” Louis whispers and Niall’s head snaps up. She stares hard at Louis, face carefully blank.

“You're going to hurt us all because you're still not over Zayn,” Niall starts conversationally with a shrug, lifts her leg enough that she can run a finger through the blood of the cut. “You're still not over Zayn so you think playing with demons will make you feel better. You still think you're just as good as she was.” Niall _tsks_ pitifully.

“That's not true,” Louis says but her throat is tight, her voice not as confident as Niall’s is getting.

“Oh, yes it is,” Niall replies, waving Louis off with a bloody hand, “You're not over Zayn because she loved me more than you. And now because you never got over her, you've put everyone in danger.”

Louis flinches. “How do you know that?”

Niall smiles sweetly. It's not her. “Know what? That Zayn liked me more? Maybe it’s because Zayn never loved you like you loved her,” Niall’s voice sounds venomous, eyes darkening and Louis takes a step back, tries to not listen but Niall’s voice is picking up, “didn’t you wonder why she spent so much time with me instead? She was sick and tired of your games, _going to get us all killed one day, she’s too cocky for her own good_ ,” Niall sneers. It looks ugly on her face, “Really you knew, though, didn’t you? We all did. It was all a front, we all know that you can’t do shit. And now look what you’ve done. You can’t fix this and you _know_ it, you can’t save Niall.”

“This isn’t you,” Louis pleads. The girl in front of her smiles so sharply that Louis is certain it’s no longer Niall, but it's Niall’s voice and it's Niall’s body and it’s Louis’s fault. Niall scoffs, turns away from Louis and heads for her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

+++

Louis stiffens when her bedroom door swings open, that night, holds her breath under her blanket. Niall stands in the doorway for a few seconds and then she comes into the room. Louis can feel her getting closer, takes a deep breath and turns over, ready to hex her if she has to but Niall is standing next to Louis’s bed, hugging herself in a blanket and tears streaming down her face. “Can I sleep in here,” she whispers and Louis nods quickly, scoots over and opens the covers. Niall crawls in next to her and she’s trembling when she tucks herself into Louis’s side. Niall’s skin is freezing and she doesn’t smell like herself, something dark, rotten at the roots of her hair when Louis kisses her forehead.

“What happened,” Louis breathes and Niall exhales shakily against the hollow of Louis’s neck.

“Nightmare,” she says and Louis frowns. “Can you tell me?”

Niall shakes her head, twists her fingertips into the front of Louis’s t-shirt.

“Niall, look at me,” Louis murmurs, tipping the girls head up to meet her eyes. She looks like hell, dark circles under bloodshot eyes and there’s a bruise on her jaw. “Are you still you?”

It’s a long fucking time before Niall answers. “I don’t know.”

Louis shifts so they’re both sitting up, Niall folding into herself at the loss of contact with Louis, can’t look her in the eye. “Niall, we can do something--we can try to exor--”

“I’m fine,” Niall spits violently, stiff and cold as soon as Louis starts to even suggest it, “you said demons are like the flu, right? You always got rid of it fine.”

Louis chews her lip, “I don’t think this is something that you can just push through--”

“I’m just _tired_ , okay,” Niall complains, almost a whine and she leans forward tentatively. Louis studies her for a long moment, decides that she must be herself-enough that if Louis just holds her until she falls asleep, she’ll be fine.

“C’mere then, babe,” she finally sighs and Niall settles back into Louis’s side, nose pressed against her shoulder. Niall falls asleep first, in a few minutes, Louis can feel her breathing evening out and she gets softer in Louis’s arms, warms up a little. Louis is just drifting off herself when Niall hums low, almost sounds like a growl in the silence of the bedroom, and opens her mouth against Louis’s shoulder, teeth resting on her skin like Ornias is testing the bones against Louis’s flesh.

Niall’s gone before Louis wakes up the next morning. Louis has never been one for superstition, but she creeps across the hall and takes Liam’s bottle of salt. She pours a ring around the perimeter of her bedroom, just in case.

+++

There’s a scream the next night that jolts Louis violently from sleep. She sits bolt upright, heart hammering in her ears and then there’s a loud thump downstairs and Liam crying, _“Don’t!”_

Milton’s down the stairs before Louis by a few paces, followed by Harry, to see Niall standing in the middle of the kitchen, something clutched in her fist, Liam crying a few inches in front of her.

“She’s got Gus,” Liam blurts as soon as Louis appears in the doorway. Harry almost moves forward but Louis reaches an arm out to stop her.

“Niall,” Louis says carefully and Niall turns. Her eyes are blown black and she grins, canines a little sharper, raises her hand to show Louis the small mouse in her hand. “He bit me,” she explains sweetly, “I have to kill him.”

Louis looks down at Edith, wrapped around her ankle, and points her foot forward slightly. “Why’d you go to Niall?” Louis asks, trying to stall, and the girl’s face twitches, confused for a moment.

“She’s so _bright_ ,” Niall eventually says but it’s not her voice, Ornias speaking lower, slower, trying to reason with Louis, “She was going to _tell_ on us, Louis, you know we couldn’t have that. You didn’t want Liam to throw a fit about demons in the house and I didn’t want to stop playing yet.” Niall hunches her shoulders up, closes her eyes and smiles, like she’s getting comfortable. “You and I both know Niall’s the best of you. She’s the perfect body-- _fuck you_ ,” Niall’s voice skips like a record player and she coughs the end of the sentence out, like she didn’t mean to say it. “Shut up,” the lower voice growls, frowning down at herself and Louis nods down at her python, slithering silently across the floor towards Niall. Edith sinks her fangs into Niall’s ankle and the girl yelps, dropping Liam’s mouse as she tries to kick the snake off. Liam scoops Gus up and Niall’s about to lunge at Louis when there’s a soft _puff_ , a cloud of pink powder clouding over Niall and she crumples to the floor immediately. Liam and Louis turn incredulously to Harry, who is brushing the rest of the powder off her palm.

“Hemlock and musk seed,” she admits sheepishly. Harry steps calmly over Niall’s body and pulls Liam into a careful hug. Liam lets out a relieved sob, half-laughing when she looks over at Louis, “How long have I been telling you we’ve needed an earth witch?”

Louis gives the pair a tight smile, “Yeah. Quick thinking there, H,” she says sincerely as she crouches down to pick up Edith. There’s a long minute of the three of them looking down at Niall. The worst part might be that she doesn’t even look any different, no open, weeping wounds on her face or vomiting slime. With her eyes closed she looks the same. Maybe that’s why they’ve put this off for so long, convinced this is just some ghoul having fun with them.

Liam and Louis look up from Niall to each other, Liam opening her mouth but Louis spits, “I fucking know, Liam. I know.”

Harry doesn’t have time to ask what they mean because Louis murmurs something to Milton and he scampers down to the basement. “Help me get her up,” Louis grunts to the other two as Milton reappears holding a pair of handcuffs. Louis hoists Niall up to lean on her shoulder but the girl stirs, exhales gently against Louis’s face and her eyes ease back open. “Shit,” Louis murmurs right into Niall’s face and the girl’s mouth spreads slowly into a dark, menacing smile.

“Where were we?” Niall purrs and she reaches up, squeezes the side of Louis’s neck too hard. Liam moves forward out of the corner of Louis’s eye and Louis shakes her head as slightly as she can, tucking the handcuffs into her backpocket. Niall’s watching her like a hawk, smile turning into a snarl and she begins to look away from Louis but Louis grabs her chin, pulls her back and kisses her.

Niall melts into it like she always does, a soft moan when Louis opens her mouth against Niall’s and she tries not to cringe at the rotten taste under Niall’s tongue. “Louis,” Niall murmurs, kisses Louis even harder and Louis takes it as a chance to move a step backwards. Niall follows easily, still kissing Louis as she fumbles with the basement door. “C’mon then,” Louis whispers in a throaty voice and Niall hums. Louis takes Niall’s hand, ignores how tight the grip is, and leads her down the stairs.

Louis is crying by the time they reach the last step but she won’t let Niall see it. Louis leads her down the basement steps and kisses her as soon as they’re at the bottom, hard and fast, Niall getting so wrapped up in it that she doesn’t hear the soft clink of metal behind Louis’s back. She bites down on Niall’s lip and is met with a soft growl, Niall’s hands coming up to Louis’s face and she gasps softly, more out of fear, and Niall turns them until Louis is up against the wall.

“Niall,” Louis mumbles against the girl’s mouth and she tastes so bitter, her teeth cold against Louis’s lips when she smiles back, “what?”

“I’m sorry,” Louis breathes and Niall pulls away to frown at her, eyes blown black, grip tightening on Louis’s neck but Louis dodges away, fastens the handcuff to Niall’s wrist in one fluid motion.

“Louis?” and Louis...Louis can feel her own heart break because for a second, a _second_ , it’s Niall, looking back at her in a confused state of panic and then it’s gone, replaced by Ornias and it howls, “Louis! Let me GO!” Louis backs away just as Niall thrashes against the restraint, some guttural noise that Louis was used to hearing until now, coming out of Niall’s mouth.

She comes upstairs to Harry and Liam sitting at the kitchen table, waiting apprehensively. Milton scampers up Louis's side, tucking himself into her neck and offering her a tissue. Louis takes it and thanks him quietly, wipes her eyes and blinks blearily up at the other two witches. "Okay," she sighs, shrugging to Liam in defeat, "Call her."

+++

The door opens and Harry almost doesn’t see her against the slick darkness of the streets behind her. A black panther steps into the entryway first followed by a girl in a black cloak, the door clicking shut behind her as she lowers her hood. She’s stunning, black hair pulled to the side in a braid, a tattoo of an animal’s skull visible through the short hair of her undercut on the left side of her head. It’s the first time that Harry’s truly felt intimidated by a witch. Harry must be staring because the girl finally looks over at her, raises her eyebrows. “The hell are you?” she asks.

“Are--are...you’re Zayn?” Harry stumbles and the girl nods, narrows her eyes. “I’m Harry,” Harry tacks on after a beat, “I’m new.”

“Obviously,” Zayn replies shortly, running a hand through her hair and brushing past Harry towards the kitchen. Her panther lingers behind her, bows its head at Harry as it passes and Harry feels a little less humiliated, like she’s meant to understand that Zayn isn’t being intentionally short with her.

Harry’s about to follow Zayn into the kitchen when someone grabs her shoulder--Liam at the bottom of the staircase, shaking her head already. “She’s going to fucking kill Louis,” she whispers, “you probably don’t want to be in there for that.”

As soon as she’s done speaking there’s a flash of green light from the kitchen and a shrill _what the fuck!_ from Louis, and then a bang of yellow.

There’s no real verbal argument that Liam and Harry can make out, lots of curses and _fuck you’s_ followed by more spells. Harry leans her head miserably on Liam’s shoulder. “They’re probably ruining my plants.”

“One time they were both possessed by sex demons,” Liam mutters, patting Harry on the head sympathetically, “they decided to fuck on my potions table. I lost all my monkshood, had to wait a whole year to get a stash together again.”

There’s finally a shrill “stop!” from Louis and Liam moves forward to peer around the kitchen doorway. Zayn’s panther has got Milton trapped between its paws, and Edith is hissing at a sooty owl on the kitchen table, who screeches.

Liam steps into the room, says “Zayn,” clearly and the new witch turns, her stony expression softening a bit.

“Hi, Li,” Zayn says, whisks away from Louis to wrap Liam in a quick hug and the panther and owl move away from Louis’s familiars to sulk under the kitchen window. Louis keeps scowling but Milton clambers up her side and pats her cheek with his small hand until she reaches up to pet him.

“Can I get you something? Tea?” Liam asks and Zayn looks from Louis to Liam and then nods tersely. Harry doesn’t want to step into the kitchen with them--everything’s too tense, Zayn’s owl still glaring at Milton from across the room and Louis has an angry red mark across her cheek from one of Zayn’s hexes. Liam gets out their jar of tea bags and moves for the mug cupboard and it’s like they’re all just _ignoring_ the fact that Niall is possessed and locked in the basement.

Liam opens the cupboard and Laser screeches, flutters out of the cupboard and immediately over to Zayn. It’s the first time Harry’s ever seen him outside of the cupboard. Zayn’s face lights up, stroking the bat gently as he lands on her shoulder, “Laser! Hey, babe,” she coos, and then something must click because her face is flat and pissed again. She turns to Louis.

“You’ve been keeping him locked in a cupboard?”

Louis opens her mouth like she’s been slapped, “Jesus, maybe he didn’t _want to_ leave with a traitor--”

“You’ve been keeping my familiar in a cupboard?” Zayn raises her voice and Liam shrinks against the counter, gives Harry a wide-eyed look like _guess no tea, then_. “Is that your solution to everything now then, Louis? Just lock it up until it stops being a problem?”

It hits a little too close to home and Louis snarls, like she’s about to shoot back, but there’s a dull _thump_ from the basement and her face crumbles. Zayn hears it too, face turning less angry and more concerned. “Where is she?” Zayn bites out and Louis folds immediately, looks down at her shoes and it takes Liam to pipe up, “Downstairs.”

Zayn flinches, glancing to the basement door. She looks like she wants to ream Louis out again but ultimately decides against it. She opens the basement door and only pauses for a second at the noise that Niall makes at the bottom, visibly steels herself before she descends downstairs.

The three others follow her down but stand on the stairs, as if stepping onto the basement floor would imprison them there with Niall. Zayn flips on the light and freezes.

Niall’s sitting on the floor, head tipped back against the wall but when Zayn steps towards her she tilts forward, dark eyes settling on Zayn and a sharp smile spreading across her face with ease. “Never thought I’d see you again,” she says and it’s the softest, most sincere that the girl has sounded in days and, for a second, it’s believable.

“Oh, Niall,” Zayn breathes and the girl’s face twitches, for a second, contorting for a second into a frown and she blinks hard once, twice, eyes returning to their old bright blue for a second and then it’s gone again.

Zayn rounds on the three girls still cowering on the stairs, face set stony and furious. “How the _fuck_ could you have let this happen,” she asks all three of them but she’s looking at Louis. 

“We fucking _called_ you here, didn’t we? We couldn’t do it ourselves, had to call the almighty Zayn back, so excuse us for not getting on our knees and _begging_ \--” Louis spits but Liam grabs her arm, holds her back from going for Zayn. They only stop arguing because there's a shrill, ringing laugh that interrupts them. It’s Niall, laughing until the other four are staring at her. "Oh, don’t mind me,” Niall cackles, clapping her handcuffed hands together, “I _love_ seeing you all argue, is all.” She lowers her voice and looks around the basement, like she’s going to let them in on a secret, “Niall hates this, she just gives up whenever you lot are yelling.”

Louis shuts her mouth and looks apprehensively across at Zayn. Zayn’s jaw twitches but she doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t turn to face Niall, either. “Upstairs,” Zayn mutters. She glances back at Niall on their way up and the chained girl winks just before the basement lightbulb clinks and burns out.

+++

Louis’s copies of the books on the bottom shelf haven’t been touched for years. Zayn heaves them both out, _The Lesser Key of Solomon_ and _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum._ She looks up pointedly at Louis as she brushes the dust and grime off the covers and Louis just holds up her hands. “I don’t fuckin’ know how to read those, Z, you know that,” she tries to argue but her heart isn’t really in it. “You taught me how to do it all, anyway.” Zayn face softens just before she looks back down at the books.

“Do you know who it is, then?” Zayn asks after a moment, drumming her fingernails on the index of seventy-two demons listened in _Solomon_.

“Ornias,” Louis says confidently and Zayn glances up through her hair.

“You’re sure?”

Louis wants to say yes. She almost does but something stops her, something tight in her chest that makes her remember how this demon felt. It was heavier than any of the trickster demons she was used to messing with, a darkness she found herself having to fight harder than usual against. “No,” she finally breathes and Zayn just drops her head down against her chest and Liam breathes, “Fuck, Lou.”

There’s a long, tense pause and then Liam speaks up: “So, how do we know who it is?”

“We don’t,” Zayn and Louis say at the same time and instead of looking at Louis, Zayn looks over her shoulder, towards the basement door.

+++

“Stop!” Niall screams, curling into herself as best she can against the restrains and Zayn’s face wavers, her wrist twitching a tiny bit but she doesn’t stop. The skin of Niall’s forearm keeps burning until it bleeds and her voice breaks into a sob, twisting desperately against the handcuffs.

“Stop,” Louis says quietly. She moves to step forward but Liam grabs her wrist, tightens her grasp when Louis pulls and says, louder, “Zayn, _stop_!”

“No,” Zayn says flatly, not taking her eyes or wand off of Niall. Her wrist is bleeding freely now and she’s sobbing into her shoulder, whimpering _stop, Zayn--_

“Zayn, you’re hurting her--” Harry tries to interject because Louis is crying, now, Liam and Harry both holding her back from going after Zayn. Zayn does stop, then, whips around to face the other three.

“It’s not Niall,” she spits fiercely, voice unwavering though her eyes are wet. “Louis, it’s not Niall.”

“That’s not Niall, Zayn?” Louis shoots back, nodding behind her to where Niall’s whimpering, head tilted back against the wall.

Zayn flinches but doesn’t look back at Niall, instead stares hard at Louis. “It’s _not_ her.”

There’s a tense few beats and Harry moves forward, drawing her wand out to stop Niall’s bleeding and as soon as she gets close Niall picks her head up, snarling so suddenly that Harry stumbles backward, spits _fuck_. Niall starts laughing, shouting something in furious tongues. Something about it sinks into Louis’s skin. She shakes herself free from Liam’s grasp and rushes forward, grabs Niall by the shirt and shakes her hard. “Let her _go_ ,” Louis cries and Niall just looks at her blankly with black eyes. She says, flatly, “No.”

+++

“It’s not going to tell us who it is,” Harry says what the other three have been thinking this whole time and Louis looks up at her with teary, exhausted eyes.

“Harry’s right,” Zayn agrees gently, buries her face in her arms. “There’s nothing we can do about this in one night.” She lolls her head over to stare at the spine of _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. “_ We have homework to do.”

Louis shakes her head, pushes away from the table, “I have _drinking_ to do,” she mutters, carries over her box of bottles and the Ouija box where her rolling papers and weed is. Zayn looks like she’s about to protest just for the sake of protest as Louis pulls the lid off the box.

There’s a tense silence as Louis shakes out a line of hash onto one of the rolling papers. Zayn laughs, then, under her breath, and pulls the Ouija board towards her. “You were always shit at this,” she murmurs and Louis cracks a small smile, watching as Zayn starts rolling the joint. “I know.”

Harry can’t help but want to tell them to get focused but Zayn whips up two perfect joints in a minute and between the weed and the shots Louis pours them she figures that Zayn and Louis need this and all of them deserve this, one goddamn night to chill out without anyone crying or bleeding or screaming.

She doesn’t know who actually starts the Ouija board game (or maybe it starts by itself, Nick’s never one to let themself be left out of fun), but an hour later Zayn and Louis have their hands on top of each other over the board’s planchette.

 _B-A-C-K-F-O-R-N-I-A-L-L-?_ Nick spells out when Louis has taken her hand off for a drink and the question is clearly directed at Zayn. She blushes. “I guess so. Do you know anything we’re missing?”

 _W-H-O-I-T-I-S_ , Nick replies, and then points to _:)_

 _“_ You motherfucker,” Louis says loudly, spluttering over her drink as Nick replies and she puts her hands back on the board, motioning for Liam and Harry to add their hands, as well. “Well? Who is it?”

Nick pauses for dramatic effect and Zayn finally sighs impatiently, “ _Please_ tell us who it is, Nick.”

 _O-R-T-H-O-N_ the planchette spells out and Zayn and Louis look up apprehensively at each other.

“You're sure?” Louis asks and Nick slides the triangle quickly to _YES._

 _“_ I didn't even know I _had_ Orthon,” Louis grumbles, rubbing her face with the hand that isn't on the small piece of plastic. Zayn watches her steadily, seems to bite back a comment and instead turns to Liam. “Can you pull up Botis’s index,” she asks and when Liam frowns in confusion, Zayn clarifies, “Orthon is a minor demon of Botis’s.”

Liam reads out loud from the book behind them, “ _Orthon is a minor demon of possession, under the control of President Botis. Orthon is responsible for reconciling friends and foes, but can also be difficult to identify and exorcise.”_

 _“_ So,” Zayn says slowly and then waits until Louis has properly thanked and dismissed Nick. Louis folds up the ouija board and looks up anxiously at Zayn, but begins to smile when Zayn continues, “it'll be just like the old days, then?”

+++

“You’re not serious,” Louis deadpans when she peers over Zayn’s shoulder the next morning. Zayn’s got _The Lesser Key of Solomon_ propped up over her bowl of cereal, open to “The License to Depart” chapter. Zayn looks up at her, quirks an eyebrow because her mouth is full of Reese’s Puffs. Sparta, Zayn’s panther, hisses lazily at Louis and both girls give the cat an exasperated look. Leonardo coos gently from his spot on the back of Zayn’s chair, drawing their attention back to the book.

“We’ve _never_ used that,” Louis says, squinting at the script on the page. “I can’t even read that.”

Zayn shrugs. “I don’t know how useful it’ll be. Most demons respond fine to modern language, anyway. I think we just have to keep, like…” she doesn’t say _torturing her_ but it’s understood. “How’d you even summon it?”

Louis shits uncomfortably, tries not to look at the sooty owl on Zayn’s chair. Leonardo was always good at making Louis feel guilty. She doesn’t think Zayn’ll be mad--it seems they’re over that phase, but they both know Louis has fucked up big time. “I thought it was Ornias. Just cracked the crystal and inhaled it.”

Zayn hums, points to a line in the book. “I don’t think we’ll have to say this _whole_ incantation, but the beginning could be helpful.” She recites it around a mouthful of cereal, “ _O Thou Spirit Orthon, because thou hast-diligently answered unto my, demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here license thee to depart unto thy proper place; without causing harm or danger unto man or beast.”_

Louis stares at her. It feels like Zayn never left at all, sitting here in her old chair eating cereal and reciting exorcism verses. Fuck. She’s still so in love.

+++

Orthon knows that they know who it is. Louis had expected it to give up, once they figured out who it was, but it seems to be clinging that much harder to Niall. Today, it’s letting Niall through more than it ever has and she’s just been crying, not completely lucid but it’s her, begging for Zayn to stop torturing her. Louis isn’t allowed to interrupt but one of Niall’s screams chills Louis to the bone and she’s livid, suddenly, rushing forward before Liam can grab her and she wretches Zayn’s wand away from Niall.

“Louis!” Zayn shouts, grabbing her before she can rush forward to Niall and the girl against the wall keeps crying. “It’s her, Zayn,” Louis pleads, trying to unpry Zayn’s fingers from her arm, “she’s back, you’re _hurting_ her, Niall! Niall, you’re you, right?”

The girl sniffles and nods, dropping her head down to look at her feet and Louis lets out an agitated yell as Zayn picks Louis up, slings her over her shoulder. Zayn carries her up the stairs and dumps her unceremoniously on the kitchen floor.

“You can’t be down there,” Zayn decides, blocking the doorway with her whole body and Louis stares speechlessly back at her. She shoves Zayn, first, but the taller girl doesn’t move.

“She's my friend too, Zayn,” Louis spits and a flicker of pain skips across Zayns face and then it's gone again, replaced with her familiar cool expression. “You can't come down here until you get yourself under control.”

“I am under control!” Louis bursts and Zayn just raises her eyebrows. Louis rubs her temples.

“Look. Niall’s still in there and you're hurting her.”

“I _know,_ Louis,” Zayn hisses, quiet and dangerous. Sparta swishes her tail lazily from across the kitchen. “you don't think I know that? But it has to be done, okay? We can't separate Niall from Orthon. It's too late for that. He’s just going to let her through to get to us and it’s obviously getting to you.”

Louis fish-mouths but doesn’t have any response to that.

+++

Harry sits with Louis in the kitchen while Zayn goes back to work in the basement. Liam's been trying for an hour to get Louis out of the kitchen, get her outside or upstairs but Louis isn't having it. She's on the floor with her ouija board, chain-smoking her cigarettes with one hand and the other on the planchette, trying to get more information out of Nick. “Are we close?” she asks with a tiny voice. The planchette is still and then there’s a bloodcurdling scream from downstairs and Louis’s fingers stutter on the plastic triangle. She has to close her eyes for a long moment and Harry watches the girl’s jaw twitch but other than that she’s motionless. It’s so still that Harry can’t take it anymore, pushes away from the table and starts clanging around the kitchen, just to drown out the muffled incantations and cries coming from downstairs. Louis’s head snaps up as Harry loudly collects an armful of jars but Harry gives her a stern look, _don’t_ , and Louis drops her head back to her board. Harry measures out enough lavender and honey for a cup of tea for Louis. Her eye catches something glittering on the windowsill-- a small jar of blue glitter, one of Niall’s collections of stardust. _It’s good for all sorts of things_ , Niall’s voice rings back in Harry’s ears as she reaches for the vial, _all you need’s some faith and trust and pixie...well, stardust, right?_ Harry pops open the small cork and sprinkles a pinch into Louis’s tea.

Louis only looks up when Harry holds the mug down towards her. Louis takes a sip and smiles gently up at Harry. “Stardust?”

Harry nods, wrings her hands anxiously but Louis just nods, mutters, “You’re learning just fine.”

+++

“Okay,” Zayn starts slowly, picking her head up from the mattress. She’s not the immaculate witch Harry met a week ago--her eyes are bloodshot and her fingernails are bitten down and bloody as she sweeps her mousey hair into a bun, holding it in place with her wand. “This torture shit isn’t working, but I’ve found something that does. You all have to give her a rune. Lou? Do you have those cards Niall made you?”

Louis nods, crawls to the edge of her bed and opens a drawer in her nightstand. The pack of cards she produces is in pristine condition, unlike most of Louis’s other possessions, and she spreads them across her mattress carefully. They’re black cards with runes painted on them with shimmering gold, Niall’s careful handwriting on the corners with the definitions of each, _FLIGHT: news, travel, communications_. “I gave her Moon,” Zayn says softly, sliding the _MOON: family, memories, dreams_ card towards herself. “She was lucid for, like, five seconds.”

“By _gave_ you mean…” Liam starts softly but trails off. Zayn nods. “It...it really has to be a cut or a burn for it to work.” She runs a finger absently over the moon rune on her card. “Pick the one that means the most to you about her, yeah? It’s going to hurt her but…” she lifts a shoulder. “I think the actual rune? The meaning of it? It’ll bring Niall back.”

They’re silent as they pick their cards, Harry sliding the _HARVEST: progress, achievement, endurance_ into her own lap. Liam picks _STAR: clarity, strength, light_ without hesitation and Louis is last, biting her lip and staring down at the remaining cards. She finally lays a few fingers on _RINGS: good vibes, beauty, not wanting to go it alone_ and then draws it up to her chest.

There’s a heavy moment, none of them looking at each other, and then Liam speaks up. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

The walk into the basement feels like miles but it still comes too soon, the four of them rounding the corner to where Niall’s against the wall. Niall just raises her head and stares at them wordlessly, moves her arm to the side to expose a seared moon on the soft underside of her forearm. Zayn stares fixedly at the ground.

“So,” Niall starts slowly, her voice dry and cracked and she spends a long second looking at each girl. “Who’s up first?”

Liam holds up her card and steps forward, studies the rune for a few seconds so she won’t have to look at Niall. When she steps forward Niall splays herself out, exposing her arms and legs and she licks her lips, “take your pick,” she says sweetly, “but maybe don’t burn me, this time.” she turns her black gaze to Zayn, who’s half-turned away, now, “Niall _really_ didn’t like that.”

Liam looks back at Zayn over her shoulder and Zayn still doesn’t look over. Louis finally nods confidently to Liam, who continues forward to Niall. Niall’s eyes follow Liam as she approaches and Liam takes a few seconds to compose herself and when she does, her face is carefully blank, steeled against the demon. “ _Laceros_ ,” she says gently, as if the softer she says it, the less painful it will be. A bleeding red line appears in the crux of Niall’s elbow above the moon and the girl screams, _Niall_ screams. Louis flinches, fighting her instincts to rush forward and then there’s a hand on her shoulder, anchoring her to the spot. Harry meets Louis’ eyes, gives her something else to look at, focus on, instead of the whimpering that Liam’s cuts are drawing from Niall. Liam’s star rune is one of the smaller, simpler ones, and it doesn’t take long, Niall exhaling hard when the final line bleeds across her arm and Liam steps back, panting like she’s just completed a marathon.

Harry squeezes Louis’s shoulder and then steps forward, figures there’s no time to waste. The harvest rune is complex and there’s an edge of anxiety when Harry mumbles, “ _incindio_ ,” and points her wand at Niall’s ankle.

The first small curves of the rune appear black and seared onto Niall’s ankle and her soft whimpers turn into pleas, “Harry, fucking stop, _please_ ,” and as her voice raises into screams she sounds less like Orthon and more like herself. And that’s when Harry’s wrist falters, the rune interrupted because Niall’s crying, now, sobbing and begging for Harry to stop and it’s completely Niall, beside herself from the pain and Harry stumbles backwards, tears hot in her own eyes. “You can’t stop!” Zayn speaks for the first time since coming downstairs, voice shrill with urgency and it’s enough to shock Harry to continue the rune, repeating _incindio_ more forcefully this time. Niall’s head lolls down onto her chest halfway through the burned rune and Harry almost stops, again, but Zayn’s hovering, now, making sure she finishes it.

Harry retreats behind Zayn and Louis and Liam draws her into her arms immediately, hugging her tight and turning their backs to Niall, who’s giggling now, spitting insults.

“You think you’re so fucking clever for figuring this out, don’t you?” she demands, fixates her dark eyes on Zayn and Louis. “That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter because you’re not going to be able to do it. _You’re not going to be able to fucking do it_ , Louis, because I’m going to let her through for this and she’s going to hate you.”

“Don’t listen to it,” Zayn murmurs in Louis’s ear but Niall only raises her voice, “ _She’s going to hate you_ , you’re going to hurt her and she’s going to hate you. And you can’t let her hate you, you can’t do anything without someone holding your hand.” There’s a beat, Niall closing her eyes and exhaling so hard it sounds like a cough. She comes back and grins slowly. “She’s so disappointed in you.”

“Shut up,” Louis spits, stepping forward with a wave of angry confidence and Niall starts laughing. “Shut _up, LACERO_ ,” Louis shouts, jabbing her wand to Niall’s other, clean forearm. Almost immediately Niall’s eyes roll back in her head and she shudders. When her eyes roll back they’re Niall’s again, bright blue and brimming with tears and she can’t hold Louis’s gaze for more than a few seconds before she screams and flails against her restraints.

“Louis,” Niall begs, face contorting as Louis pauses between the first circle of the rings rune. “Louis, _don’t s--_ ” and she’s cut off with another cry of pain. Louis’s eyes are burning with tears but she doesn’t dare to blink until the second circle is done. She almost breaks, then, lowering her wand with a gasp and she flinches when someone’s hand squeezes at the back of her neck. “Don’t stop,” Zayn whispers, keeps her hand solidly on Louis’s neck and it’s enough for Louis to complete the third circle. Her ears are ringing, drowning out Niall’s cries and she focuses instead on the warmth of Zayn’s palm, her soft, coffee-and-cigarette-breath on the back of Louis’s head. Zayn chants _lacero, lacero_ gently, prompting Louis to finish the rune.

Niall passes out just as the third bleeding circle connects on her arm and Louis drops her wand, rushes forward, _i’ve fucking killed her_ the only panicked thought running through her mind and Zayn follows, keeps a hand firmly in the middle of Louis’s back as she crouched in front of the bloodied witch.

“ _Still here_ ,” a voice growls low and soft and Niall lifts her head up to look at Louis.

“Fuck!” Louis screams, grabs Niall by the shoulders. “Fuck you!”

“Wait! Louis, wait,” Zayn grabs her shoulder, wretches Louis away from Niall. “It’s almost done. It’s almost done. Look.”

The new runes are puckering into scars, Zayn’s moon already raised and angry, but healed on Niall’s arm. Zayn’s grip on Louis’s shoulder loosens and Louis steps closer, the other three edging up behind her, and Zayn’s hand slips from her shoulder down to hold Louis’s hand.

Niall watches Louis come forward but her face is carefully blank and she’s relaxed against the wall, breathing evenly as Louis approaches. Louis reaches out, touches Niall’s cheek the same way Niall had done that night Louis stood in the doorway. And that’s when it happens. Niall closes her eyes, tips her head back against the wall and exhales.

Niall breathes a cloud of black smoke, coughing out the last puffs of Orthon and Harry catches it on the tip of her wand like a cobweb, lowering it down to sink into the crystal that Liam holds out to her.

Niall keeps her eyes closed for a minute, her chest rising and falling gently with her breath and Louis moves her hand down to touch the scarred runes on her arm. “Niall,” Zayn whispers, crouching down next to Louis and then she opens her eyes.

They’re blue again but it takes her a long moment to focus on Louis’s face and when she does she closes her eyes again and lets out a soft sob, holding her handcuffed, bloodied arms up as high as she can, tries to get Louis in for a hug.

Zayn’s grip tightens on Louis’s wrist cautiously but it’s definitely Niall. She even smells like herself again, Louis tucking her face deeply into the crook of Niall’s neck. Liam mutters an unlocking charm and Niall throws the handcuffs off, raising her shaking hands up to rub her face.

“Niall,” Zayn says again, louder this time, and Louis moves aside so Zayn can help Niall to her feet. She’s trembling terribly when Zayn hugs her and the rest of them converge slowly, careful to not overwhelm her. Niall’s got her fingers twisted into Zayn and Louis’s shirts and they hold her for a long time.

+++

Niall doesn’t speak, doesn’t come out of her room for two days afterwards. Their only reassurances that she’s okay are Apollo and Callisto, who slink downstairs every few hours, plucking up a water bottle or sleeve of crackers. Apollo winds his way around Louis’s ankles and purrs loudly, reassuringly, before he disappears back upstairs.

The four of them are at the kitchen table for breakfast--the only routine thing they’ve seemed to keep intact through this entire thing--when the staircase creaks. There’s a feeble attempt at being nonchalant from Liam and Zayn but Harry and Louis are out of their chairs when Niall appears in the kitchen doorway.

She’s fresh out of the shower, hair hanging wet over her forehead and she’s still wearing her pajamas. She tries a brittle smile but must decide that it doesn’t feel right on her face, her expression dropping and she lifts a shoulder in an apologetic shrug.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, tries to look each of them in the eyes but her brow furrows and she can’t, looks down and crosses her arms. The scars on her arms are visible for the first time since the day in the basement. They’re different now, though, pale and healed over and each of them outlined with her silver stardust. Harry starts to step forward and the movement seems to set something off in Niall. She says it again, “thank you,” and then keeps repeating it after her voice breaks, _thank you, thank you_ and all of them are out of their chairs, pulling her into their arms.

It’s a quiet breakfast--Niall doesn’t eat, stays shrunken into her chair between Liam and Zayn but it’s so fucking good to have her here. It’s so fucking good to have everyone here, Louis looks from Niall to Zayn and feels fuller than she has in months. “I’m glad you’re back,” Louis finally speaks but but she doesn’t know who she’s saying it to. There’s another stretch of silence. It’s the closest to an apology that Louis will let herself get today. Niall moves slowly, reaches out towards Louis and wraps her fingers around the small black box of Louis’s teabags, takes one out for herself.

“I thought those were off limits!” Harry blurts as Niall steeps the teabag in one of the mugs on the table and Niall laughs. It’s the first genuine giggle they’ve heard from her in days, pure and melodic. It’s contagious, Zayn starts grinning and Louis is laughing, buries her head in her arms as her shoulders tremble. Niall tips over to chuckle into Zayn’s shoulder, she’s trembling so hard from laughing. Their laughter fades back into silence but it’s not as heavy, Niall settled easily against Zayn’s side and Louis bickering playfully with Harry about her cursed teabags.

Sparta rests her head on Niall’s thigh and Callisto and Leonardo are perched on the back of Niall’s chair, all of the familiars edging closer to her as the girls start moving around, cleaning up from breakfast.

“Louis,” Niall says softly, reaches for her wrist as Louis passes by and Louis pauses, looks down at her.

“What’d you do with it?”

Louis looks across at Zayn, who’s laughing with Liam as they try to charm the dishes to clean themselves. “It’s back with the others,” she finally replies sincerely, almost expecting anger from Niall. But Niall just bites her lip and nods, squeezes Louis’s wrist gently. “Don’t let it out again, okay? You can keep them but. Please don’t take them out. Ever again.”

“I promise,” Louis says immediately, had already had a long conversation with Zayn about this. The jar of crystals has already been buried in one of the back corners of the basement, the demon books put back in their abandoned places on the bottom bookshelf. Niall nods, stands up and kisses Louis on the cheek before she scoops up Apollo and heads back up to her room.

+++

“Guys,” Niall calls down urgently from the staircase a few days later. Zayn’s been slowly moving her things back into the empty bedroom at the end of the hall but for now she’s taken over the couch, still half-asleep as Harry and Louis bicker over the magical accuracy of _Spirited Away_ and Liam tries to coax Gus down from the top of the bookshelf. The four of them are immediately on their feet, scrambling up the stairs and Niall’s standing at the end of the hallway upstairs, motions for them all to follow her into her bedroom.

It’s apparent that whatever this is isn’t something bad and the four of them relax, Zayn leading the way down the hall into Niall’s room. Her room is back to its old charm, those weeks she was in the basement Liam had closed all her curtains, turned off all of her telescopes and stowed her vials away. All of her windows are open, now, moonlight drenching the room in silver. There’s only a few crows in the branches outside, almost invisible against the inky darkness. Niall’s astronomical clocks greet them with their familiar ticking and the constellations on her ceiling blink brighter than they have in weeks. Her crystal ball is clear.

“Look,” Niall whispers, herding the four of them right up to the windows. She’s almost herself again, aside from the dark bags still present under her eyes, the fading bruises on her wrists, and her bitten-down fingernails. She’s restless with excitement as she arranges the four of them around the windows and her telescopes.

There’s a flare of brightness in the sky outside--a shooting star, illuminating the quiet crows in the trees and the evening primrose blossoming on her desk and and the new jars set up on the ledge outside the window, already a quarter-filled with bronze glitter. “It’s the Leonids,” Niall explains to them softly, careful not to disturb the meteors flicking across the sky. She’s looking outside, her nose barely pressed against the window and her breath fogging up the glass but the other four are looking at her.

Niall must catch on eventually because she looks back at them, catches them all watching her and she rolls her eyes impatiently, jabbing a finger against the glass. “Guys, really. _Look_.”

Zayn reaches out, rests a hand at the back of Niall’s neck and Niall’s mouth tips into a smile, breaks eye contact with the sky to lean over and kiss her gently. Louis watches, smiles when Zayn looks over at her and Niall reaches over, pulls her into her other side and Liam and Harry draw in closer until all five of them are huddled against the glass. The silence feels like a love that’s almost settled, like falling asleep in the small hours of night just before dawn. They breathe together and watch the stars. It feels like the most important conversation they’ve ever had.

+++

**Author's Note:**

> my witch vibes tag & tumblr is [here.](http://foxesmouth.tumblr.com/tagged/witch-vibes)


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